Tag Archives: inner tubing

I hope each of you had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. We spent the long weekend in Gatlinburg to attend the Gaither Family Fest, a three night series of concerts by some of the best artists in Southern Gospel music.

Even though our nights were booked up, we had time during the day for other activities, so we decided to take advantage of the pretty weather and try some sort of water activity one afternoon. Our choices were inner tubing down the Little Pigeon River, going to the Water Park at Dollywood or white water rafting. To be honest, Mark and I would have preferred to try white water rafting, but Kayla was pretty scared, and I had no wish to fight crowds at the Water Park when the main attraction for me there was the Lazy River, so the compromise agreement was that we would go inner tubing. Somewhere in the back of my mind was the idea that inner tubing down a river would be much the same as going to a Lazy River attraction, just on a real river rather than a man-made one.

Of course, the two are nothing alike. My first clue came when my neck started hurting because there as nothing on the inner tube to support it. The best way to get relief was to stretch out in full nap position across the top of the inner tube, which would have been okay except for the shoals – there are two or three spots on this particular inner tubing path where the water gets very shallow and runs over a series of rocks. We called them “the rapids” although I am sure they were quite tame when compared to the real thing. They were not designed with naps in mind.

Because the rapids are so shallow, it is easy for your inner tube to get hung on some rocks. You can get “unhung” in one of two ways – either you push yourself off of the offending rock and back into the mainstream of the river, or another inner tube does that for you. However, when I got hung, another inner tube coming up behind me hit me at just the right spot to flip me out of the inner tube into the shoal. The water was only mid-calf deep, so I wasn’t in any danger, but the current was very fierce, and the rocks very slippery so I couldn’t get my footing to stand and get back in my inner tube. While I was still pondering my way out of the dilemma, another inner tube came along and bumped me in just the right way to separate me from the inner tube I was seeking to get back into.

So now it was just me sitting on the rocks in the rapids. I saw that Mark had caught my inner tube down the river and was trying to get it back to me, but the current at my location was too strong. Finally, I ended up scooting myself over the rapids rock by rock like an upside down inch worm – my posterior in the water – until I could get to the deeper, quieter water. By the time I was reunited with my family and my inner tube, I was exhausted.

The other problem with inner tubing is that the river is completely in control of your progress and path. While I don’t think of myself as a control freak (Kayla, stop giggling here), eventually the lack of control started driving me crazy. The river liked to drive me towards the banks where there were more rocks and things for my inner tube to catch on, while I wanted to keep towards the center of the river. Apparently inner tubes were not designed to allow you to use your arms to steer them, so my attempts to do so left me yet again exhausted. It was a great upper body workout though!

There were some parts of the river where you could just float lazily along and relax – one part was so placid I think we almost stopped – and the people inner tubing along with us were incredibly friendly and nice, so I’m glad we did it.

I’m even gladder, though, that there are no photographs of me during my impromptu inchworm impersonation.